Vermiculture
Vermiculture, or worm-farming, is a fairly simple way to break down many kitchen scraps into material that your garden will love. In fact, for a couple of years now I’ve been using the same setup - a Can-O-Worms from Wiggly Wigglers - to do just that. Inexpensive, quick to set up and extremely low maintenance. Perfect.
A worm farm is really just a container filled with dirt, kitchen scraps and worms. At the base of many of them (including the Can-O-Worms) is a tap, ready to occasionally pour the rich liquid into a watering can; to be topped up with water and used on the garden. It’s a great fertiliser.
The process
I keep the worm farm outside, near the gardens it helps support. In the kitchen is a large ice-cream container (any container with a lid would do fine), to which is routinely added :
- tea bags
- coffee grounds
- vegetable peels
- fruit cores and rinds (other than citrus or banana)
There are many more things that could be added, but as a general rule : any kitchen waste is fine, apart from meat, bones or acidic materials (such as citrus fruits and banana skins). Small amounts of paper are also fine (but I usually recycle those in any case).
Once the container is full (every couple of days or so), it’s emptied into the top section of the Can-O-Worms (underneath the protective coir matting). When that layer of the Can-O-Worms is full, the entire layer is moved to the bottom of the worm farm and a new (empty) layer moved up into the top position. The worms will find their way into the new layer as soon as there’s food there to eat.
The amount of liquid in the bottom of the Can-O-Worms depends largely on the rain, but I’d say it gets emptied every 2-3 weeks or so. Pour it into a watering can, and dilute it with a large amount of water. The water should make up roughly 90% of the mix.
The benefit
There are two main benefits of worm farming. These are :
- ready-made garden fertiliser
- reduction in household waste
It’s the second reason that originally encouraged me to try it; the fertiliser is just a nice bonus. And the amount of kitchen waste I produce is significant - in coffee grounds alone. If you’re in a similar position, it’s well worth trying.
NB : If you live in a flat, smaller models are available for indoor use. As I haven’t tried any of these I don’t have any recommendations; but I’d love to hear about any that you try.
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Great idea. My family had one a few years ago but since moving out of home I have never set one up. Even the big brother house (in Australia) has one! (yes yes I know, watching big brother is sad...)
Posted by: Peter | April 25, 2007 12:06 PM
I've been gradually reducing my waste production for a couple of years now (it still amazes me when I see people put full bins out for collection each week) - and this is a major part of it. Especially for the teabags and coffee grounds.
Well worth giving a go.
Posted by: Anonymous | April 25, 2007 2:22 PM